Weather Scotland: Edinburgh to be hotter than Athens as hottest day of year forecast for tomorrow

Temperatures are set to soar on Wednesday in locations including Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee

Temperatures are forecast to peak at 22C in parts of Scotland on Wednesday as the country braces for what could be its hottest day of the year to date.

Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee and Inverness are all forecast to record 22C heat - hotter than the 18C heat expected for Athens in Greece on the same day - as the country basks in a mini-heatwave.

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Loch Lomond in the sunshineLoch Lomond in the sunshine
Loch Lomond in the sunshine | John Devlin/NationalWorld

Scotland’s warmest day of the year to date was on April 10, when the gauge reached 22.8C in Durris and Aboyne in Aberdeenshire. However, that peak could be bettered over coming days.

The Met Office said the temperature gauge was also forecast to hit 19C in Aberdeen on Wednesday, before the weather cools slightly later in the week.

Edinburgh is forecast to reach a cooler 15C on Saturday, although conditions are still expected to be sunny.

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The bright sunshine is forecast as parts of the UK could hit 30C at the earliest point in the year on record on Thursday, the Met Office said.

Parts of southern and central England are expected to see temperatures reach 26C on Tuesday. The warm weather will continue on Wednesday, with highs of 27C in London forecast.

Temperatures could rise to 30C in some places on Thursday, the forecaster said.

Luss Pier on Loch Lomond in the sunshineLuss Pier on Loch Lomond in the sunshine
Luss Pier on Loch Lomond in the sunshine | John Devlin/NationalWorld

Met Office chief meteorologist Paul Gundersen said: “It is not particularly unusual to see warm and sunny periods in April where temperatures reach the mid-20s. This has occurred as recently as 2018 and 2019, for example.

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“However, it is more unusual to see temperatures reach the high-20s, and if we see 30C this week, it will be the earliest point in the year in which we have achieved that threshold.”

Nicola Maxey, press officer at the Met Office, said: “As high pressure continues to dominate the UK weather we will see the temperatures building day on day through the week with Thursday seeing the peak of the heat with 29C or even a chance we could see 30C.

“Friday temperatures will start to dip across much of the UK as the high pressure starts to pull away.”

The highest recorded April temperature was in 1949, when Camden Square, London, recorded 29.4C. For May, the highest temperature recorded was 32.8°C on May 22 1922, in Camden Square.

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There is a possibility the UK could see heatwave conditions this week, if temperatures reached 25C on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, the forecaster said.

According to the Met Office, the definition of a heatwave is three consecutive days of temperatures exceeding the “heatwave threshold”, which varies across the country.

The threshold is 25C for most of the UK, with slightly higher numbers for the South and East, and rising to 28C in London.

Mike Childs, Friends Of The Earth head of policy warned that heatwaves will become “far more frequent and more intense as climate change takes hold”.

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“The UK also needs to go further and faster to cut its emissions,” he said. “A new climate action plan is due in October, and ministers must seize the enormous opportunities this will bring.

“As well as getting UK climate targets back on track, it will also cut bills, create new jobs, insulate our heat-leaking homes – and put the UK at the forefront of helping to fix our broken planet.”

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